The challenge of playing fathers and sons in a musical

Rock musician Sting is the composer of the new musical "The Last Ship," which plays at the Bank of America Theatre in Chicago this summer before it opens on Broadway in the fall. The show reflects on Sting's childhood town, Wallsend, a shipbuilding community on the northeast coast of England.

Last week, Sting and John Logan's "The Last Ship" finally had its Chicago opening, about halfway through the run of its pre-Broadway tryout. Tickets for the last shows of the run (it closes July 13) are selling briskly after the burst of publicity on opening night. The show features a beautiful score by Sting — reason enough to buy a ticket — and a raft of stirring performances and inventive staging. And, of course, there are few things as interesting in the theater as watching artists of this caliber wrestle, in public view, with a big, high-stakes new show.

"The Last Ship" still needs work. In my review last week, I argued that in a show in which the central conflict is between a demanding father and his estranged son, it is crucial that we both like and empathize with the main character of Gideon, the son who comes home to the struggling shipbuilding community of his youth. Gideon (Sting's alter ego in the piece) is played by Michael Esper, a talented actor who needs to wrestle with this conundrum and who needs help from his composer, writer and director. Esper's problem, I argued, is that he comes off as more angry than vulnerable.

Over the last few days, something I didn't realize earlier has been gnawing away at me. I've said pretty much the same thing about the last three Broadway musicals to try out in Chicago: "Kinky Boots," "Big Fish" and, now, "The Last Ship."

All three of these shows deal with demanding fathers and estranged sons. (You might well argue that it is high time for a musical about demanding mothers and estranged daughters, but I will work with what I have to work with here.)

In the case of "Kinky Boots," which has a very similar core narrative to "The Last Ship," the son runs away from his late father's expectation that he manage the family shoe factory, only to learn over the course of the show that he must be responsible to his community and return to reboot the factory, so to speak. "Kinky Boots," which features another terrific theater score by a recording artist, in this case Cyndi Lauper, became a huge hit on Broadway. But in Chicago, Stark Sands also came off as more angry than vulnerable.

In the case of "Big Fish," which did not survive in New York, another son runs away (all the way to Europe) from a tall-tale-telling Southern dad he finds suffocating. By the end of the show, of course, the character has to learn that his father loves him, won't live forever and lived a life to emulate, not despise. When that show opened its tryout in Chicago, I wrote that the actor playing that son, Bobby Steggert, came off as more angry than vulnerable.

So what can we glean from this consecutive trifecta? It sure makes it clear how many new musicals of the past few years have depended on some variation of the same plot — demanding father, estranged son, a path to reconciliation, even if one of the parties is already dead. It's a device that keeps on giving, regardless of setting or tone. But here's what I've come to understand better these past few days: Those sons are very difficult to play.

Very. Especially in a musical.

Why? Well, it's easy to play the dad, as they're usually dead or dying. Their very mortality makes them vulnerable. They can be charming and eccentric; you might recall Norbert Leo Butz's big-hearted performance, a inestimably fine piece of work that should have been Tony nominated last year, in "Big Fish."

The sons are at an inherent disadvantage: They're young and vital, plus most of their hurt has happened before the story begins. That's especially true in "The Last Ship," which I think really needs to focus on telling us more of Gideon's back story.

Musicals have a limited amount of time for plot; they must spend a lot of their stage time singing and dancing. That means that the poor actors in these roles have very little time to explain why they're so upset at their dads, and thus the likelihood that they don't explain themselves well enough for us to like them — given all the structural decks stacked against them — is very high.

To put that another way, it's really difficult to fit in some really moving expression of the hurt when you also have to explain why the old dude bugged you so much and what it did to you. And in the theater, we tend to like old dudes, especially if they are dead or dying. If their son tells us we should not, it takes us a while for us to believe him, especially since the show usually is pointing out the flaws of the son at the same time. It's kind of a Catch-22. Actors beware!

So Esper, a handsome devil with a Sting-like voice, should take heart. Both of the sons in those other two shows got much more likable when their shows opened on Broadway. Sands, who I thought at sea in Chicago, completely turned his performance around before opening in New York (he got some big help from a new song and some restructuring of the book) and scored a much-deserved Tony nomination. It was a dazzling transformation.

Esper will need much the same kind of help: a new song, a different charting of the when and the what we learn about his relationship with his dad. And then he's off on the same kind of voyage, with the desired destination of the baring of the filial soul.

THEATER LOOP IN STRATFORD: This summer, join Chris Jones and The Theater Loop on a getaway to Ontario, Canada. "Press Pass: Theater Loop Goes to Stratford Festival" includes bus transportation from Chicago to the festival and tickets to four productions, plus backstage tours and other extras. Check out theaterloopstratford.eventbrite.com.